The European Parliament on Wednesday (20 October) adopted by
a crushing majority new budgetary and staff regulations for the European
External Action Service (EEAS), clearing the last legal hurdle for the launch of
the new institution.

�It�s a historic vote. We�re all one happy family now,� an
official in the entourage of EEAS chief Catherine Ashton told EUobserver.

EU foreign ministers are set to approve the parliament
decision when they meet in Brussels on Monday. Ms Ashton is then expected to
name people for the three or four top posts in her service on Tuesday or
Wednesday. Another 100 or so senior posts remain to be filled by the end of the
year.

The British baroness now has until 1 December - the official
launch date - to find a new home for the EEAS in the EU capital. EU Council
secretary general Pierre de Boissieu is not keen to shift his translators out of
the Lex building in the EU quarter in Brussels to make room, leaving the so-clled
Axa or Triangle building a few hundred yards up the road still in play.

The current cost of housing the EU�s foreign relations staff
in the European Commission and EU Council amounts to �25 million a year, while
the Axa option would cost �9 million a year, EUobserver understands.

Ms Ashton is also close to a compromise with the parliament�s
foreign affairs committee on hearings for new EEAS ambassadors. The diplomats
are likely to face parliament questions in early December, after receiving full
accreditation from host countries.

Ms Ashton wants the hearings to be held mostly behind closed
doors. Following the vote on Wednesday, the foreign affairs MEPs have little
leverage to use against her.

The budget-and-staff package envisages detailed parliamentary
oversight on EEAS hiring and firing of diplomats in foreign missions but not on
EU member states� spending of the �3-billion-a-year European Development Fund or
on military missions.

It stipulates an �appropriate and meaningful presence of
nationals from all the member states� but not quota-type targets for nationals
from new EU countries, as called for by Polish centre-right MEP Jacek
Saryusz-Wolski.

Ideas on what the EEAS should actually do in the coming years
are still evolving.

German Green MEP Franziska Brantner on Wednesday urged Ms
Ashton to specialise in conflict prevention. �What Europe needs are crisis
management and mediation experts rather than an unwieldy service of
high-salaried diplomats,� she said in a statement.

Meanwhile, Europe�s neighbours are likely to feel relief that
the mild disarray in EU foreign policy caused by the EEAS launch process is
coming to an end.

Recalling the Mavi Marmara crisis in May - when Israeli
commandos killed nine Turkish citizens bound for Gaza - the Turkish ambassador
to the EU, Selim Kuneralp, told this website of Anakara�s difficulties in
communicating with the EU.

�Normally, in a foreign ministry you have people at various
levels for third countries to talk to. In the EU at this stage there are
basically three people, all of them very high-level - Ms Ashton herself, Robert
Cooper and Helga Schmid,� he said, referring to Ms Ashton�s two top advisors. �